I want to do the ABBH workout, but I only have a barbell. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can modify the routine to work with the equipment that I have?
I also don’t have a chinning bar or dip stand, so I can’t do chins or dips. This makes it difficult to do a vertical day. I have tried to think of some substitutions but I don’t know if they will work.
On vertical day, I have thought of subbing upright rows for chins and overhead press in place of dips.
Any suggestions?
You can do military press, overhead press or close-grip decline bench press to substitute for the dips.
I’m surprised you can’t find a way to do chins, but I’m sure you could do upright rows or something else in place of them.
Nate Dogg,
Thanks for the reply. I will eventually rig up some form of chinning aparatus or buy a chinning bar, but right now I don’t want not having this equipment to keep me from working out.
I guess I will have to go with upright rows, which is probably a poor substitute for chins since I don’t think it hits the lats.
One other potential problem with using chins was that it requires the use of 60% of one’s max.
This would be less than using my bodyweight for chins.
Or maybe in that case I should just use my bodyweight since I can’t go any lower.
As far as your vertical pulling movement I’d use a barbell or plate pullover as there is more lat involvement than an upright row. Ian King has used this as a vertical pull in a program I’ve read. However, I find it hard to believe that there isn’t a park or something near your house that doesn’t have a bar you can chin on.
My suggestion to you is to do one of two things.
Purchase a gym membership. They aren’t that expensive. Read the article in Shug’s weblog “Display Adaptability”.
I don’t really think that a gym membership is necessary if you have a bar and some weight. However, I would personally create my own program such that I could do all the exercises with the weight I do have. There was a post on here the other day about working out with only a barbell. Check it out. Once you’ve got a program post it and we’ll critique.
Kinetix,
Thanks for the pullover suggestion. Maybe there is hope for me after all.
There might be a park somewhere near with a tree for me to do pullups, I will have to look into this.
If it isn’t too difficult maybe I can build my own chinup/ dipping station. Thanks.
try seated dips, or whatever you call them.
go thte edge of your bed or somethign similar, put a chair infront of you, now place your feet (heels) on the chair and your hands ont he ege of the bed so that your butt hangs out in the air. dip.
do get the 60% rm and so forth, place weigths ony our thighs.
[quote]shamr0ck wrote:
try seated dips, or whatever you call them.
go thte edge of your bed or somethign similar, put a chair infront of you, now place your feet (heels) on the chair and your hands ont he ege of the bed so that your butt hangs out in the air. dip.
do get the 60% rm and so forth, place weigths ony our thighs.[/quote]
shamr0ck has given you some great advice!
Before ABBH there was Dinosaur training…just a thought.
go to Brooks ubik’s site and check out tips section, look for “can I train with nothing but a barbell”.
good health
[quote]shamr0ck wrote:
try seated dips, or whatever you call them.
go thte edge of your bed or somethign similar, put a chair infront of you, now place your feet (heels) on the chair and your hands ont he ege of the bed so that your butt hangs out in the air. dip.
do get the 60% rm and so forth, place weigths ony our thighs.[/quote]
I do not recommend seated dips. They will destroy your shoulders. Regular dips are a much better alternative. If not, I’d stick to overhead pressing or decline close-grip benches.
Stay away from the bench dip unless you want shoulder problems. Even those without shoulder problems will have them after using bench dips.